Latest update June 21st, 2026 12:48 AM
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TRUST
In Guyana, the business of politics is one that is fraught with the risk of relying on falsehoods and propaganda as a way of promoting one’s views. In the current climate of a struggling economy amidst poverty, it is easy to get most Guyanese to believe in falsehoods and propaganda that promise to improve their well-being. Many are of the view that the government could not have reduced the value added tax (VAT) by two percent and increased old age pension and the tax threshold without imposing several new taxes. Some felt that the government knowingly and deliberately misled the public. Others have supported the view that the Ministry of Finance did not do the arithmetic correctly and as a result, came up with inaccurate figures.
But the problem was not so much the flawed arithmetic. The problem was what the Government did when it discovered that its figures were wrong. Making mistakes with the figures were bad enough, but to apply the value added tax (VAT) on private education and on the consumption of electricity and water above a certain limit is perhaps a bigger mistake. If indeed the government made an error by reducing the VAT, it would have been smarter for it to simply and graciously admit the error and not proceed on the flawed path to tax electricity, water, private education and other basic items.
The government may have lost the trust of the people, except, perhaps, its diehard supporters. To place all that energy and political capital in something that undermines the trust in the government cannot be anything fitting. It seems that ego has got in the way of those in power to admit that they have made mistakes. But whether or not they admit their mistakes, the truth is, all of us have made mistakes at some time in our lives. No one is perfect and neither is this government.
Being truthful could lead to trust, which is the most important quality in every relationship, whether it is between spouses, employers and employees, teachers and students, the judiciary and citizens and politicians and the people. Trust may have many ingredients, but the most important ones are credibility, confidence and competence.
For example, the people’s trust in the government is based on their confidence in its competence to get things done. Another is the degree of trust that citizens have in the government is determined, in large part, by their confidence in its ability to make decisions. Third, the level of respect the people have for politicians, the confidence they placed in them, the slack they are willing to cut them, and the amount of details they demand from them, are all dependent, to some extent, on how competent they perceive politicians to be.
Along with competence is credibility, which is simply the question of being believable and worthy of trust. But there can be competence without credibility. For example, on May 11, 2015, the people voted for change, hoping that the new government would be competent to effect change. But it seems that the credibility of the government is being undermined by poor management, personal indiscipline, and by working at a snail’s pace, which have led to a loss in confidence by the people.
Despite naysayers, many people believe that the government is credible and that it has done a good job in the clean-up of Georgetown, reduction of crime and maintaining unity. Others have stated that the government has not performed well and is yet to prove its competence in managing the affairs of the state.
However, the greatest test for the government is to maintain its credibility and trust with the people. It must demonstrate that its word is its bond; that what it says it will do. One hopes that the president and his cabinet will not engage in cheap political point-scoring, and what they had promised to do will be done expediently. The government should have the maturity and humility to admit its mistakes. Trust is important.
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